Communist China Using Interpol to Hunt Down Its Enemies Abroad

The Communist Chinese regime is abusing Interpol's international arrest-warrant system to hunt down whistleblowers and potentially even dissidents overseas, according to victims and multiple media reports that have raised fears worldwide about human rights abuses. Making matters worse is the fact that the brutal dictatorship recently had an agent, Beijing's ruthless former “Vice Minister of Public Security,” installed as president of Interpol. The latest alarming developments at the self-styled international law-enforcement agency have received some international media attention already. But this is hardly the first time Interpol has been used by mass-murdering tyrants and totalitarian regimes to extend their reach around the globe. And it raises a number of key questions.

The latest controversy surrounding Communist China's abuse of Interpol began last month. In late April, various media outlets, citing Beijing's Foreign Ministry, reported that the dictatorship had issued a “red notice” international arrest warrant for real-estate mogul Guo Wengui. The request for foreign assistance in tracking down Guo, though, came after the Chinese national, who now lives in the United States, threatened to blow the whistle on what he said was high-level corruption within the Chinese Communist Party and among its operatives posing as “businessmen.” Under the Interpol scheme, foreign governments are expected to arrest Guo and send him back to Beijing — possibly for torture and even execution, a common occurrence under the brutal communist regime known for murdering more people than any other in history.

Officially, the Chinese regime claimed he was suspected of bribing a senior official. Guo reportedly had close ties to former Chinese State Security Vice Minister Ma Jian, one of many top officials caught up in a massive purge of party insiders taking place under the guise of tackling alleged corruption. “What we understand is that Interpol has already issued a 'red notice' for criminal suspect Guo Wengui,” Communist Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang claimed at a regular news briefing, without adding any details on the alleged charges, and acting as if the regime had nothing to do with it. The dictatorship apparently told Interpol that Guo was wanted as part of an investigation into bribery and corruption.

But the timing was more than a little suspicious, analysts, journalists, and human-rights activists around the world said. As Foreign Policyput it, the timing gave “reason to believe that China’s motive is purely political and that Interpol is in danger of becoming an extension of the increasingly long reach of the Chinese state.” Indeed, in March, before the dictatorship asked Interpol for help hunting down Guo, the Chinese real-estate tycoon, who moved to America two years ago, gave an interview in Chinese with the U.S.-based Mirror Media Group where he made accusations of extreme corruption at the highest levels of the ruling Communist Chinese Party and the mass-murdering dictatorship it owns and operates. The charges threaten to disrupt the regime and the party in significant ways.

Among other crimes, Guo revealed that one of Communist China's most powerful families had used its political connections in the Communist Party to enrich itself by securing stakes in a number of firms. Specifically, Guo explained in the interview, now seen online by more than half a million people, that he had discovered as part of his business operations that the family of former Politburo member He Guoqiang secretly owned a huge stake in one of China's largest brokerage firms. In an explosive article, the New York Times, which cited interviews on corporate records, confirmed some of Guo's allegations, sparking an international scandal. Among those implicated in the corruption is, ironically, Beijing's top “anti-corruption” official.

And compounding the public-relations nightmare for the Communist Chinese Party and its masters was that Guo threatened to reveal even more about the He family and their shady communist dealings and corruption, along with exposing the corrupt communist elite's dirty laundry to the world for the good of China. “Guo Wengui is from the grass roots, born as a farmer and not afraid of death,” Guo said in the interview, speaking of himself in the third person. “If you do it again, then I would have no choice and will fire a cannon to you. I don’t want to war against you, but He Jintao, you had better watch carefully what you say and what you do, including with your wealth — you’ll be responsible for it.”

Just a few days after dropping that bombshell — and threatening to drop even more — the dictatorship reportedly sent Interpol a request for a red notice seeking the arrest of Guo. Of course, because Guo now lives in the United States, the chance of the regime getting its hands on him is slim, unless he travels abroad or, worse yet, attempts to enter mainland China. But Guo appears to have taken the threat in stride. “This will only make Wengui fight even more resolutely to the end with these bad people,” he wrote on social media, again speaking of himself in the third person. “This is all just the beginning!”

True to his word, just a few hours after the Interpol red notice was announced publicly, Guo did an extended live interview with the U.S. government-funded Voice of America broadcaster. The interview was advertised as being three hours long. However, it was cut from the air under mysterious circumstances almost two hours before the interview was supposed to end — right as Guo was hinting at the information he intended to reveal on corruption in the upper ranks of the Communist Chinese Party. More than a few prominent voices suggested that the regime in Beijing, the U.S. government, or both had intervened to block the disclosure. VoA denied political interference, but did admit that its representatives in Beijing had been summoned and warned against giving Guo a platform.

Among the most alarming elements of the saga, from a foreign perspective, is the communist regime's use of Interpol to hunt down Guo and others. As The New Americanreported in November, the self-styled global “police” agency Interpol officially selected as its new leader Communist Chinese agent Meng Hongwei, a top “security” official for the brutal dictatorship before taking his new post. At the time, this magazine reported on critics who expressed concerns about how the appointment of the communist agent would help the mass-murdering dictatorship “better hunt down and terrorize dissidents worldwide.” Unfortunately, that process appears to have already started.

Other analysts are also recognizing the growing problem. Foreign Policy, for example, which remains a globalist and establishment-minded publication, nonetheless noted that “Meng’s ascension also aroused suspicion because of China’s own record on blurring police work and politics — a pattern that some feared would carry over into Interpol’s work.” And after the red notice was put out for Guo, Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty International's regional director for East Asia, also expressed alarm. “Our warnings about the risk of political instrumentalization of Interpol after putting [a] high ranking (Chinese Communist Party) official at the top were not overblown,” he said.

It is not the first time tyrants have used Interpol for sinister purposes, though — and it will not be the last. In recent years, despite formal prohibitions on the practice, the dictator-dominated global outfit has come under heavy fire for using its systems to help brutal Islamist regimes track down journalists and alleged “apostates” accused of “religious” crimes. In 2012, for example, Interpol sparked worldwide outrage after reportedly helping the Saudi regime hunt down a young woman who allegedly committed the capital “crime” of converting to Christianity. Before that, Interpol also reportedly helped the Saudi monarchy track down and arrest a journalist who fled the kingdom after being accused of insulting Islam’s prophet — punishable by death in most Islamic-ruled nations. Interpol denied that it played a role in the arrest, despite an official statement by Malaysian authorities saying that Interpol had demanded it.

From 1938 until the end of World War II, meanwhile, the International Criminal Police Commission, as it was known at the time, fell under the complete control of the mass-murdering National Socialist (Nazi) regime in Germany. Indeed, the outfit was actually led by SS boss Reinhard Heydrich, the deputy of infamous Nazi war-criminal Heinrich Himmler, before being taken over by senior Nazi official Ernst Kaltenbrunner. The outfit's headquarters were moved to a confiscated Jewish home in Berlin. And Interpol became a tool used by the Nazi killing machine for persecuting dissidents, and even for arresting those who helped Jewish refugees. After the war, Interpol President Kaltenbrunner was executed for crimes against humanity following the Nuremberg trials.

In addition to the Chinese dictatorship's blatant use of Interpol to hunt down dissidents and whistleblowers abroad — something the regime boasts about in its state-run propaganda organs to terrorize the population — there are other troubling elements to Beijing's efforts to extend its control outside its borders. For instance, in recent years, the regime's agents have kidnapped their targets in other countries and shipped them back to Communist China for torture and more. In 2015, at least five men — accused of publishing “sensitive information” — were kidnapped by the regime's agents. Most of those happened in Hong Kong, which Beijing promised would keep its freedoms. One was kidnapped from Thailand and later turned up in Chinese police custody.

In an astoundingly bold move, last year, citing the U.S. government's global “terror” war, the regime in Beijing issued an “anti-terror” decree purporting to authorize its own global terror war. Among other troubling provisions, the measure purports to authorize foreign deployments of Chinese police, soldiers, and special forces to battle alleged “terrorists” and “extremists” — or perhaps dissidents so labeled by the regime — wherever they may be in the world. The Internet, which Beijing censors, is also a battleground in the Chinese terror war.

Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is normally based in Europe. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOUor on Facebook. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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